Ghosting

Why don’t my posts show up on Craigslist?

For those of you not familiar with the changes that have taken place on Craigslist over the years, you may not be familiar with this term. ‘Ghosting’ is the term applied to when you make a post on Craigslist, and the system tells you that your post has been published but your post never appears on the front page of Craigslist. The system gives you a post ID and a URL and you can see your post if you put the post’s URL in your browser, but unfortunately no one else will be able to see it because it will never appear on the front page. Your post becomes like a ghost wandering the back halls of Craigslist aimlessly looking for someone to look at it, but no one can see it. It’s a sneaky way they found to get rid of people they don’t want posting on Craigslist. So how do you keep your posts free from ghosting? Keep reading!

Before ghosting, every post you made would show up on the front page of Craigslist. Every time your post was flagged you would get a courtesy email telling you that they were sorry that your message got flagged. If your message was removed by the Craigslist staff, you would not get an email about it. Your post would simply disappear without any warning. People eventually got wise to what was happening and would keep an eye on their emails. Flagging became such a huge problem (and still is) that people would have to make multiple posts, or constantly check their emails just to keep their posts active. After a while Craigslist realized what was happening and instead of doing something productive or useful to solve the problem, they decided to so something sneaky and underhanded. They decided to just Ghost anybody that they had the slightest inkling would be trouble. Some of you might think this is perfectly fair. After all what’s wrong with getting rid of trouble makers? The problem is that this is applied indiscriminately to just about anyone. A 70 year old granny can make a post selling her delicious cookies and have her post ghosted for no reason at all. While a prostitute can make an elicit sexual offer and that post doesn’t get ghosted.

The staff at Craigslist operates with no rhyme or reason. Don’t bother trying to figure out why they do it, just accept that it will happen. Don’t bother asking them why your perfectly innocent post got ghosted because they will either not respond, or they will give you some BS answer about it has to do with bandwidth or some nonsense like that. They have ready made answers to pacify the gullible.

You can get on Craigslist any day of the week and you can find lots of spammers, people making multiple posts within the 48hour time period that the TOS says you have to allow between posts, and they don’t get ghosted. You go ahead and try making two posts in a row and you’ll be banned for life. No warnings, no review process, just BANNED!

Another way to get ghosted it to get flagged. Just like I discussed in another post, you can get fagged by a competitor just trying to beat out all the competition. So you get flagged, you MUST be a trouble maker, and EVERY post you make from that moment on will get ghosted.

So do we let Craigslist get away with this? Hell NO! I’ll tell you some tried and true methods I have found to get around their underhanded Nazi, fascist tactics. It will mean a bit of work, but for those of you that don’t like being pushed around and don’t appreciate some jerks in this world trampling all over your right to free speech, you’ll find it’s worth it.

First of all there are lots of free services on the internet, I suggest you use them. Free emails are especially useful. Get a free email account and use that to get your publishing email. There are many emails that self destruct after a few hours, use those. Don’t bother keeping an email account for too long or they’ll get wise to you.

If you advertise a phone number in your ad, use a cell phone. Many companies will allow you to change your number every so often. There are also disposable phone numbers that you can change frequently.

If you advertise a web site or have the post send customers to your website use free websites and change your address frequently. Use free domains, and use URL redirecting sites. That way you can have many different web addresses but they all go to the same place.

When you log in to make a post on Craigslist use a proxy server. Change your IP often. Change computers if you can. Clear all your cookies and Java script. Change the referrers in your browser to 1.

Keep checking on your posts and if they don’t show up you know you’ve been ghosted and it’s time to change any of the above. Change the name you use. Change the wording. Be creative. Copy what other people post.

You do all of these things and you will be able to keep posting on Craigslist and they will NEVER be able to ghost you. Every time one thing fails, move on to another. Keep them on their toes, and make them work at it. The problem is most people just give in, and that’s what they are counting on. If you all fight back, they won’t be able to play games like that with your posts. I’ll keep updating this information every time I learn something new.

I can tell you that I have been banned many times from Craigslist and I still am able to make posts there today by using these techniques. I wasn’t banned for being a trouble maker in the traditional sense of the word. I was banned because competitors didn’t like that I had lower prices than they did, and I was getting flagged. To make matters worse I actually wrote complaints to the Craigslist staff and to Craig Newmark himself. That pissed them off! So instead of helping me they banned me. Nice aren’t they! So I decided to share my secrets with everyone.

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143 Responses to Ghosting

First and foremost, I have blogged all about this just a few weeks ago. But another problem that plagues CL….. Vindictive readers, who post because you turned them down for a “date” or do not agree with your postings. I am totally looking for the CL alternative to be started. I literally hate CL and its policies, whether in the TOU, or hidden. But its my only “dating” option.

There is a Craigslist alternative and it is our Classifieds section. Go to our site and make your post plus get the word out. The more people know about it the better it can grow and become useful to you and everyone.

I had no idea. why would a company be okay with hookers and prostitutes running the singles section. what a joke. as far as using my real name, other dating sites use your handle for communicating. silly me…just naive being too honest. good to know.

craigslist is not my bread and butter but it’s a great help for me. i wonder why my ads were flagged and removed while some shemales and prostitutes even used vulgar and indecent words. im getting frustrated,

Hey guys, I’m really desperate here. First and foremost I can’t thank you enough for having this website! I thought I was the only one who was experiencing immediate flagging issues or sometimes when I post something, it’s showing active and right when it’s about to go live (around the 2 hour mark), it’s flagged.

Before with 1 computer and 1 IP address, I would just create a new account, and post successfully, but couldn’t renew, the second I renewed, it would get flagged immediately but I was successful at creating a new e-mail account and posting it.

This is something recent, it started happening in mid June. I’m desperate and I don’t know what to do, my depression has started to kick in because my source of income is through Craigslist and I need to work, I want to work, just isn’t happening. (no posts are sticking).

I went ahead and purchased Elite Private Proxies for $20 a month, for 10 I.P. addresses, also purchased the full version of CC cleaner, I would clean all my history, tracking cookies and Java cookies before I would post with Operah browser, the first postings were successful, however after that if I renewed it, it would get flagged. So I have to make more e-mails and accounts using each different IP. The IP’s are located in Phoenix and I’m from/posting in Los Angeles, which didn’t matter, or I think it still doesn’t.
Before this Craigslist change, I would be using the same IP and creating different e-mail accounts, and was able to post around 4 or 5 ads in the same section (different ads), under 1 e-mail account with no problem. That’s all changed now.

Don’t feel bad. Go to our website and use the resources that we have there. We have a Forum with lots of topics that are free to read, we have a classifieds section that you can post in for free. We have a traffic exchange system to get more traffic for your websites and social media. We have a members area with tutorials to help you learn more about ghosting and flagging. You can spend days going through all the stuff we have to help you.

BULL SHIT? Notice the peace sign as the url icon on Craig’s List. Posting there seems like posting on a Marxist Socialist Occupy site, or something. Anyone who doesn’t like what you say, even if you offer to pay too little for work you post, can flag your post and get it killed. They’re doing this ghosting to me, now, for similar reasons. It would be nice if someone started a huge alternative site with a Libertarian culture instead of Socialist like they are. Anyone?

We are the Craigslist Alternative. You can use our Classifieds section for free and you can post anything you want as long as it’s legal. No strings, no BS to deal with, and everything posted on our site gets posted on Facebook and twitter also automatically.

HI, all good info. However, when you get a different account these nazi bastards REQUIRE a phone number verification so they can send you a code number which you must put into your first post in order to get it posted. I have run out of phone numbers. :( It is a damn shame that something can’t be done to them via the law???

You do need a new phone number and there are ways to get more numbers if you run out. 1- We have a PVA guide on our website that will show you how to get as many numbers as you want for free. 2- You can buy phone numbers. DO NOT buy numbers from sleazy people on the web that will sell you fake numbers. I mean that you should buy them from reputable companies like Web hosts and VPS providers. Those numbers are real and not blacklisted by Craigslist.

About the only thing you can do is file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau but Craigslist has already received several complaints already and doesn’t care. The only time they will care is if people stopped visiting Craigslist and they lost revenue. My recommendation is to use another classified site. A lot of them require you to pay $1 to place an ad but it is worth it since sites like Backpage will not ghost your ad and will notify you if your ad is in violation of their terms of service and was removed. Your ad won’t just disappear like what happens on Craigslist. You may not get as many customers reading your ad but hopefully one day people will realize Craigslist does ghost legitimate ads and cannot be trusted and people should see other sites for the legitimate ads that were ghosted by Craigslist.

Good for you! This is a great website & fine work you’re doing – these typical arrogant secretive internet companies like Craigslist think they rule the world, treating themselves like kings while refusing to provide even the most basic attempt at customer service or tech support. Bunch of cheap bastards is what I say!

you can only post the allowed number of ads per email account. So open more email accounts. Do not post more than the allowed number of ads per email account. Do not post similar material in more than one email.
Read cl’s rules.

I appreciate your advise, that was the easiest direction coming from you, but in my age even the simplest technical term is impossible for me to understand>
If there would be another site competing with Craigslist, maybe they would step up from their high horses!

I am a 81 year old lady, and trying to survive the economy with selling on Craigslist. Suddenly, not matter what, every add, and everything I am placing is being flagged flagged, I am starting to
feel the loss of my little income, and if I do not find a Solution very soon, I will be on the street. My arthritis plagued fingers are becoming tired form posting and posting,, and my financial resources are dwindling.
I have one question today, if anyone human reads my plea for help, Could I find any instructor who would be able to explain to me to understand what every one trying to help, is talking about!

I do not understand was pasting means, I do not understand what it means to change your URL, I just do not understand anymore all those so very helpful advises , but I am willing to pay anyone for the time to teach me, how to beat that rotten system!!! I live in Las Vegas

I’m sorry to say that the only way to beat Craigslist is using highly technical methods. I don’t think anyone would be able to give you a quick rundown that you could easily apply. You would have to pay someone to do the posting for you. There are people I have heard that are in the Philippines and hire themselves out to post on Craigslist. I cannot direct you to them since this is all hearsay. Another method you can try which is very easy is to visit our Classifieds section on our website and use that to post your ads. Its free and there is NO Ghosting and NO Flagging. Your ad will stay up for the entire time its posted.

Ive joined beatcragslist.com.. waiting on reply about issues with the “rideshare” section.. Been posting for years with almost no issues. Ive always found a work around with their updates until now. Started May 1 2014 or so. I always usually renewed my ads. At most I might have 2 per day.. to keep near the top. All of a sudden the system or someone removed/deleted all my adds. Old and New. Its been quite the battle to post an add in this section. I removed all HTML that I had.. Went from that to plain text. A lot of text to almost nothing, Still gets auto flagged/deleted by the system and never gets posted. I managed to get 2 ads to stick after about posting 40. But if I change any of the ads using “Edit” the system automatically flags and deletes it. It won’t even let me post images with my ads without “auto flag/deleting my posts. I’d like to try the Proxy server thing but can’t afford it. I did do it on my phone using a different IP address, that didn’t work either. I do notice some people who regularly post on rideshare are having the same issues. They went from having usual ads to almost nothing. Any clue what I can do ?

I have the same issue like you said. All my ads being automatically deleted by Craigslist system 20 minutes after I posted. Tell you truth I have 15 email account and about 7 email account is all red now. No matter how I tried to change my wording, telephone number, website link, title, my IP address, my computer, the same deleting result happens to me. Now all my posting is red in my email and no way to renew any posting.

Interestingly, I notice all the changes suddenly happens after Mid of May 2014. Then, I decide to change my email account, I opened three new emails account, however, same result happens since I did not change telephone number associated with new email account. Same deleting issue happens to newly opend email account.

I used to stay on the top of the listing by using 15 different email account with 15 different wording and images. But now after I posting 8 hours, only 2 or 3 posting go life. It’s a really stressful moment for me as a small business owner, nearly 80% of income is coming from craigslist. The income from my trades job is supporting my family and kids.

Now I use a spreadsheet to record my posting behaviour and the results of each posting. I find an interesting pattern of how the system delete me. If this email account get too much deleting before, then any new posting will be automatically deleted and have no chance to show up at all. The same posting if issued by a good email account with very few reddness, and this posting would likely to show up.

Now what I have to do is behaving like different person posting for different companies. I am going to abadon those email account with too much red. and open three new email account with everything new, new telephone and new text. I will let your guys know my results. Investing my money to purchase some temporary phone number and HMA software now.

Also I notice my posting is keeping flagged by competitiors. why I know that is my posting will be removed 24 hours after showing up. Previouly, I ignore them but now I can post only 2 ads a day and no incoming calls from customers for the whole day.

I never flag anyone on craigslist before but my competitor’s flag strategy certainly works well and able to force me out of business.

What a disapointing moment for me to as an honest, hard working person.

OH my gosh – thank you so much for the wealth of information! We post space available in the COMMERCIAL HOUSING section. We are NOT Spammers… we just want to show what is available at various locations… and limit our posts to once per day for each property. It boggled our mind, why we were being flagged and removed! We made our ads look “less professional” (makes no sense in that section) and it worked for a few weeks… but it started up again. I posted in Chrome as Incognito, but that didn’t work… I didn’t even KNOW about the “GHOSTING” – Egads, this is just crazy. I am excited to try some of your suggestions and hopefully be up and running again soon!

Hi,I have a bunch of accounts I use to post on CL. I have about 5 different email accounts with 5 different phone numbers most of them are VOIP numbers from Google talk. Every time I try to post a brand new ad or to repost an old ad from one of my accounts my ad gets auto-flagged within 2 or 3 minutes. (It doesn’t even make it to the site it doesn’t go live, it just gets auto-flagged right away). This happens on all 5 accounts that I have. My question is has Craigslist blocked my IP address or has Craigslist blocked all 5 of my phone numbers? Does Craigslist accept VOIP numbers anymore? Any help as to why all of my 5 accounts are being auto-flagged would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I explain this in great detail in my website and forum. There are changes at Craigslist that very few people have caught onto yet. We have been doing testing and have identified what is going on. Your experience is not alone in this. Go to our website Forum and see the posts that I have made related to this. I will be updating that with more info.

Read the Ghosting and Flagging sections. If you find that the answers are not clear enough for you, then feel free to post your question there. Its free to join so go ahead and use it. That’s what it’s there for, to be a tool to enhance your experience and answer your questions.

I have had the very same experience with CL. It ruined my business. I delivered furniture for CL buyers for 3 years, and I was getting 20-30 calls per day until they started ghosting ads. Is there a site like CL that panders to all of us small business people in the same way? Just reading all of these post makes me think that there is a demand for it. Personally, I’d pay a small fee for the same exposure like Bill Wagner suggested. Do you think that we could pool our resources to create a movement on the same scale? CL doesn’t have the same grassroots backing any more.

We took your words seriously and did that very same thing. Our website now has a Classifieds section. NO Flagging and NO Ghosting.The site is monitored and regulated by ourselves, so only good posts are allowed to run while spam and garbage is deleted. Go to our site and run your ad for free. You can make suggestions for improvements in our forum as well. Get the word out and tell people about our site and maybe we can put a dent in Craigslist Classifieds business.

I guess that your 5 account have same IP. you have to invest HMA if you want to stay business. Get some numbers to buy, it’s average cost $7 each per momth. You have to invest money to stay in this business

You know what’s silly about all of this..WE, are the ones in control, not Craigslist, yet we give Craig all of the power. Old ladies can’t sell Costume jewelry on Craigslist to clean out their drawer, yet fake obvious ponzi schemes and western union wire fraud scams stick with no issue. Craigslist allows these low life people to use “Auto Flagger” bots, which all they do is put in keywords and this bot just sits and flags your ads before they even make it to the board. All of this is ridiculous, and honestly, the only ones in power are the cowards, i would never hinder anyone from earning a legit living by flagging their ads using a bot. These same cowards if they owned as example a Burger Joint wouldn’t dare go across the street and “Flag” or in this case, set fire to their competitions location or do something that would shut it down, yet because it’s “Online”, the cowards run a muck and think it’s “cute”. The only way for us to really fight back is STOP USING craigslist, if you think about it, the only reason why it’s so popular is because of us, we “make” craigslist what it is. If we all went to Backpage as example and ditched craigslist, then what would craigslist be then? And i bet you they would stop all of their “Man behind the Curtain” b s, stop allowing these nerd cowards, schemers and thieves to use bots taking down competitions ads. I bet things would change real quick, as they say, you want results from some giant a hole that’s not thinking of the people any longer and there to just rake in the dough? You hit em in the wallet, that’s what gets their attention.

I agree with you, that’s why we created a Classifieds section on our website to help out people that are getting Flagged out of business. Go to our website and post your ads for FREE. No Ghosting and No Flagging. All legitimate ads will stay up for the duration. It will be all staff moderated so everyone will have an equal chance at posting and getting seen. Go there now and post for FREE.

Been using clist from the start or near then- the last few years have sold stuff (tip-o-the-hat there) and done many aspects of socio-political commentary such as suggesting users insist on lower rental prices consistently- lately working on a plan to increase awareness of MONSANTO and its’ effects on life….any critique of this megacorp gets the flag- it must be surreptitiously applied eg breaking up the syllables so it cant be searched easily- recently wrote a snail mail to cl hq asking for one of my accounts back to snag the history but not expecting anything
best
p

Craigslist is no longer allowing any URL’s in real estate ad posts, active or inactive. If a URL of any type is in the ad, Craigslist is deleting it within minutes. Craig would have been a lot better off just monetizing it and charging 25 cents to a dollar per ad every 30 days for ads with URL’s.

Are you certain that no one else is able to post URL in their ads either? Last I heard URLs were accepted as long as they weren’t live links. They are testing monetizing sections of CL (or maybe all of CL) in limited demographics. In the near future that may be what you will find. Of course I doubt that this will eliminate the spammers or fraud since there is spam and fraud in other pay sites anyway.

Thanks for the great info! I use cl to do lead generation for my clients. I had a pretty good run but now my ads are being flagged. Some by competitors I’m sure, but some I believe is because I have too many accts and posts from my IP address.

Regarding Proxies, is 10 proxies a good amount to start with? Is it 1 proxy per cl acct?

You can try than but proxies are not working very well any more. Most of the time CL can detect them. This could be why you have been having problems. In our tutorials we teach you about VPS and how to use it.

Sure, you can join the Member’s Area and see them there. If you have any problems there I can always try to change the format and re-upload it for you in a more compatible format. You can also go to our website and join the new Forum we just created. Its free to join and post. That way you can ask as many questions as you like and get answer to your problems.

I’m getting my ads flagged every day. I think it may be craigslist. I post an ad and minutes later it’s flagged? I believe it started with competitors but the number of ads I’m getting flagged right when I post them leaves me wondering just what is going on. I can’t make a living if my ads are all getting flagged. I’m going to have to figure out some other kind of advertising because this is ridiculous.

I am having the same problem. My post shows in my account, but when searched….nothing. After between 1 minute and an hour and a half, the post is flagged for removal (shows deleted in my account). I have one other competitor and he is a spammer who currently has around 91 posts in 6 different categories. I only post in skilled services.
Now when I update or renew ANY post in my account, it is flagged and removed. I cannot post anything now and am making NO MONEY! I am very angry.

I understand your problem. The situation is that Craigslist has changed how they apply Ghosting now. They have a different method to throw everyone off since people had gotten used to the old method. I can’t go into great detail here since I have to keep things short, but if you want to post your question on my help forum I’d be happy to help you there.

question can I redirect clients to my facebook page in the beauty section? all my ads were flagged yesterday within the matter of minutes. Ive been using cl for years and my ads had a link to a website and the name of my facebook page. I have no idea if those two would get me flagged by craigslist. It could be haters though but the postings turn pink within seconds. I just created a new email and reposted without the link and its still not on the front page. Sometimes it doesn’t come up until I renew after they expire?

Yes, you can send people from your Craigslist advert to any page you like. Most likely you are experiencing competitors flagging your ads. That is why I added the link on the side panel for a good free web hosting site (http://www.advancedfreeweb.com). By using this free web host you can stay ahead of the flaggers. You can create one account and change web addresses in your control panel (by creating subdomains) as many times as you like. You can also use free domains. So lets say you get flagged with your facebook page, the you can create a free domain and use prettyhair.tk for a while. That gets flagged then make another one, or a sub domain, ie: fabuloushair.advancedfreeweb.com and so on. Then from that page you can redirect them to your real website if you want to do that, or simply create a instant site there using the free website builder. By creating and changing links and landing pages you can throw off flaggers. You wont be able to use your real company name, but who cares. The purpose is to get people to the end site, not how they got there.

No matter how many new emails I make craigslist keeps blocking me the first time I post.. I post around 10 times daily but I come to find all my posts are flagged… So I change computers but it does the same thing I even clear the browsing data everytime I post something new.. Any suggestions??
Btw thanks a lot for those tips in the blog :)

Glad to help. By what you are describing it seems like you are having a more extensive problem than most of the readers here. When you get to that point then I have to suggest the information that is in our Member’s Section. Go to my website and get the videos. You can download them for free or join the Member’s Area and see them faster and in better quality.

My website is listed on the blogroll on the side of this page, but here you go. http://www.beatcraigslist.com. When you get there just use the links on the right side of the page and select the “Posting Tutorial”.

Not all of the people posting on there are actual CL staff. Don’t believe everything you read on there. Yes, many so called “rules” are made up as they go along. The Craigslist TOS is not as extensive as you may think, so many of these staffers will “interpret” what they think the TOS means. It’s just like dealing with the law. One officer will give you a ticket for one thing and another one will let you slide. It’s all up to interpretation. This is why posting on CL is so difficult. Yes, technically they can say that a Franchise should not post more than one ad, but that in unrealistic. This is why my website has existed for so many years now, because I (and my collaborators) focus on understanding and dealing with CL rules instead of cheating like other websites have done and been sued by CL and forced to shut down.

Oh my gosh…I went to your staff page. I never knew what those little numbers were!! No secret that I show red numbers from 1 to 5 with minuses LOL And you are so right…all the green plus numbers are from posters who act “humble” and kind of in awe of Craigslist. Also checking out some free stat pages you mentioned. You know…I’ve followed the TOU to a “T”…needless to say, my business has slowed down bigtime, so I need to figure out something to do about sliding an extra post in here and there :( I do feel they have a flag on my IP address, and I just don’t have a way of getting another one. I posted yesterday morning, so it won’t renew until tomorrow morning. In the meantime, the overposters in my area are having a field day, and I’m sitting behind the pack :( Need to figure it out. I don’t think another email address will help me. Anyhow…your blog here is on my favorites list! LOL Thanks again!

Thank you so much!!! So I’m not doing anything illegal, right? There are only 2 people on there who act “human” and really do try to help, but they’re seldom on. I’m not smart with tech stuff….I write and have done that my whole life. So this stats thing is really helpful for me (especially when I see someone has gone to my contact page), but for them to go off on this tangent OMG!! They actually stretched that one single question into a 26 post thread!! There were maybe 5 “staffers” calling me everything from soup to nuts, then starting in on each other LOL they kept calling me an “idiot guy”…some of it pretty awful. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I’m a 65 year old lady just trying to keep my business alive lol

After reading here a couple of months ago, I really did some homework (mind you, after using craigslist for a number of years) of the CL TOS/TOU. It’s written in such a way that you forget it all the minute you log out. But I still was able to get it to soak in, and after following it to the “T”, I’ve successfuly run my posts, no problems. I’ve gotten kind of addicted to reading their help forum though (useful as long as you’re not the one who actually needs help…they can be so damned snarkey)…and I came across one where the poster has run an ad in Real Estate (Services) for a few years, and now it seems that the term he uses in his ad of “Virtual Tours” has been considered banned and he can no longer use it. How is this term banned? What does CL find wrong with it? Any ideas?

I really couldn’t tell you. Unless they consider it to be not advertising locally, or having external links or any of that type of activity. They are trying to keep things local and low volume. If you are a big operation they want you to start using pay services now, no more freebies. This is why many car dealers list themselves as the “owner” instead of “dealer” when listing vehicles.

In skilled trade all licensed contractors are flagged by the unlicensed crooks. CL should change the way posts are flagged, 6 people should be able to flag a post not 3 and this will prevent competitors from flagging legitimate posts

You’re getting to be my “go-to” person….I started a hornet’s nest yesterday and I’m hoping I’m not doing something wrong. A few months ago I began flagging daily, sometimes several times a day (horrendous in the w/e/t category lately)…and I’ll sometimes go into the Flag Help Forum and read the posts and answers so I can better understand how things work. I’m kind of anal about wanting to do things right. Anyway, there was a post from a guy in Vancouver, and I thought Vancouver WA, which I live right across from in Oregon. Then I realized he was in Vancouver, BC…dummy that I am. So I went into that page and discovered a whole slew of writing ads that I’ve been flagging in Portland…all the same people. Well….I use a free web building site, and they have (also free) a basic web analytics thing, which I use to see what ads are bringing in the calls for me, and what area of Portland they’re coming from. Well, I’m always getting “hits” from Canada and Germany…i figure bots. But since checking out Vancouver, I see that these could be the competition. So…I did a post saying I see on my stat graph lots of hits to my site from Canada, and asked if posters in Canada do anything different then we in the states do…in other words, are the CL TOU the same all over? Well…forget that…they zero’d in on the web analytics thing I have and they went wild over it saying I was illegal, breaking the TOU…they were saying things I don’t do…like putting an “image” into my posts??? What is that??? They claim I’m breaking the law by invading the privacy of people who find my posts on CL…how do I do that??? And a lot of my hits come from BackPage, eBay and Google where I also post. I tried to explain to them what it is I have…I don’t download anything and I’m just not sure what in the hell they’re talking about. Am I doing something wrong??? I don’t know who these people are who look at my site, and most of the time, they only go to my “Home” page, stay for 60 seconds, and disappear. So I’m not understanding this. Any thoughts on this??? Thanks for your time :(

Hahahaha….Wow, I had a good laugh reading all the details of your post. You are smart in what you are doing but you made on BIG mistake, which is talking to any of the people on CL forums. Those people are the most retarded people on the planet. You are NOT doing anything wrong by using stats on your website. Every single website on the web has stats built into it. That right there is proof positive of how idiotic they really are on those forums. The way you started out is the best way to use the forums. Read and learn, but never contribute. They will bash and bad mouth you like crazy and they will make you feel like you are trash. They are the ones that are trash, so don’t feel bad. Use the stats as you like and learn from what you see. You cant always find out who came to your website by stats, but sometimes you can. If you find that someone is being abusive, then you can use .htaccess to block them if your web host will allow that. If you need a free web host with many good features, use the one listed on the blog roll on the side of this page. Its free and quick to set up.

I post every day on CL in the shared housing section. I noticed a few weeks ago that some of my ads were being immediately flagged without ever hitting the first page. I didn’t get any notice from CL. I continued to post and tried to modify my posting to remove whatever the problem might be. Yesterday, my entire account was blocked and every ad posted for January deleted. I can no longer access my old postings. Our business provides shared, safe and affordable housing to those who need it and we’ve saved over 50 homes from foreclosure in the past year. Fortunately, we have other ways to reach our clients. I’m not sure what we did or didn’t do to be blocked. There was a recent change that we can no longer include our phone number in the body of the listing….we didn’t catch that so maybe that is the problem. We have no idea. We never received any notice from CL as to what the problem might be.

My guess is that they are now blocking everything associated with our IPs & phone numbers. No idea how long that will last!

i have used craigslist many times. At first i was looking for a tractor, most of the ads i replied to, i later discovered, were just scams. In November 2013 we needed to buy a used car for my son. i will only buy a used car from a private owner. I was in Georgia and many of the adds took some driving to get to. what i discovered is that almost every one was selling cars they never owned. or were used car lots selling all junk. I did click by OWNER ONLY. some argue they own the car so it is by owner. If you buy cars to resale them, then you are a dealer, in some states you can only sell a auto that is registered in your name, or a limited (3) number of cars a yr without having a licences or bond. If you ask me why i will not buy from a used car dealer–(I am a former mechanic) most all used cars come from salvage yards or auction pool. JUNK JUNK JUNK . just trust me on that. they come from dealers that cant resale them,dealers that could not fix them and from insurance co. that found it better they not be repaired–some come from fleets or rental co- …Most of the time a private owner knows what they are selling and can tell you the good and the bad, a dealer its always good good good. -took it in on trade from an old man-good carfax–your getting a great deal—i have one coming in-let me show you this car over here—JUNK JUNK JUNK—-SO i flag all dealers under BY OWNER.

All very good points. I agree with you that all the dealers that are posting in the wrong section are using semantics to justify their posting in the wrong category. They do this on purpose because the know that many people think the same way you do. It is a ridiculous argument and they know it. It’s like saying “I didn’t kill that guy, he fell on my knife while I was holding it”. You did good to flag them.

I post ads on the Atlanta write/ed/tr8 section. This part of the Atlanta Craigslist is completely overrun with spam ads for writing papers.

Worse still, every legitimate poster is having their posts flagged and removed. It is obviously the same people who are posting up to a 100 or so posts a day to write papers that are doing the flagging. They must have a way to instantly change their IP addresses.

What can be done about this? My livelihood, and I am sure the livelihood of others, depends on being able to advertise on Craigslist. Every single day my posts are removed and the posts of others are removed.

There can be 40 legitimate ads on Craigslist in the evening and by morning nothing but spam ads for writing papers. Please, somebody help!

Here is something I wonder if anyone knows. Since Craigslist took away links, are now putting our website, contact information in our photos. 99% of them get ghosted when we do this. Does Craigslist have something that knows if there is a website or number in a photo? When we remove this from the photo, the ad goes live.

Some random person posted an ad with my name an cell phone #, too many annoying calls about a Samsung TV that I did not advertise. It appeared under electronics in Albany over a month ago..Tonight I started receiving calls again from Miami about the same TV. How is it possible for someone to use my name and number? How do I stop this?

It’s easy to post any information in an ad. It doesn’t have to be their info. CL does not police the facts of an ad and there is no real approval process, so ads of spite or vengeance are easy to post. If someone wants to get even with someone else, or simply annoy them, they can easily post false information. Another possibility is that the ad is off by one number or the people are dialing it wrong by one number and getting your number instead. Can’t rule that out completely unless they tell you that it’s your number specifically that is in the ad.

So I’m getting ghosted or something. If I post an ad from my main email account, it gets flagged right away (i.e. it never even makes it online), although sometimes it will work. But if I posted from my other email account, it will go up but it takes about an hour and fifteen minutes every single time. It’s so frustrating.

This all began after I posted a few “re:” to posts about the people using fake pics. People were stealing pics off the internet and passing them off as theirs so I was being helpful and letting people know. I get banned or ghosted or whatever from craigslist, but these people who are posting up to 20 ads a day and using fake pics don’t. It makes no fucking sense. It’s so backwards. That’s what I get for trying to lift the rug on some total creeps.

1. Get another cell phone on your present account. It’ll only cost you $10 a month if they’re not screwing you. I use US Cellular. They let you change your number for FREE! Call it your :”craiglist verification phone” and use it for that reason only.

2. Set up several email accounts thought your ISP and use a new one each time C/L ghosts you.

That’s it man. You’ll be go to go forever!!! Been there – done that!!!

I live in Houston and can no longer post anything. It was one day (after I ranted on the cl forum) but is it possible for them to block a range of ips even in a huge city like Houston? Did I screw things up for 1/3 of this city?

Yes it is possible and No you didn’t screw it up for 1/3 of the city. They can block very specifically. Most likely the IP is simply used as a trigger and the MAC address of your machine is what is causing the actual blocking. They are not blocking out everyone else who uses those IPs.

Eventually CL will overhaul its flagging system. It just has to, as it can only persist for so long. Not making the improvements just creates situations where users find a way to beat the current flagging system and use it to their advantage in not a good way. It is a great site.

It is a great site! No one is saying that it isn’t. More to the point is just that the way flagging and ghosting is currently implemented poses serious problems and is frequently used improperly and significantly abused.
I have to say that when those thieves and scammers attacked my parent’s estate sale, we had more attendance from that area to the estate sale than any other day we sold stuff or any other items we ever tried to advertise on Craigs,
The community came out in mass support of us. It was very reassuring. So yes, there is a positive community involvement there too which I think is the saving grace of CL. It’s just unfortunate that the current way the site works with flagging and ghosting can be so badly abused to hurt people.

I’ve had a constant problem with CL since this summer. I rely heavily on CL for my writing service which I use to supplement my SS Benefit check. I’ve used them for 10 years. I suddenly was hit with tons of scammers responding to my ads. Thinking they were legitimate clients, I’d contact them…a couple of hours later my posts would all be deleted (and I’m talking about posts that were far down the list and well over 48 hours old). I use Google Analytics and noticed at this time that many IP addresses coming to my website were from Germany. I just figured they were bots from somewhere else. But it’s gotten horrible, and I haven’t gotten any responses in 6 days now. I’ve done almost everything short of changing my IP address, and that isn’t an easy thing to do. I’m on Comcast and they’re not happy with doing that. I’ve changed email addresses, I could begin another new website I suppose…I’ve changed how my ads look…I’m at a loss. I sent another email to Craig about this situation…but another new post I put in managed to stick for 2 days. I was thrilled and sent him a “thank-you” email. Today the 48 hours is up on it, and when I went in to “renew”…it was deleted. So I’m not sure if this is CL banning me for something, or if I have a scammer on my tail :( I have another new post…the only one I have…and although it took an hour to show up, it’s so far sticking. I’m at a loss. I’ve used every free advertising site I can, but none bring in the business like CL does. I’m just not sure what to do next.

Hard to tell if you have a problem with CL directly by what you tell us but it may be that your posts are being deleted because of the scammers and spammers that you are attracting. Again, hard to say from such few details. One thing I can tell you is that if you cannot change your IP with Comcast but wish to use a different IP I can suggest using a VPN service. HMA is OK for the occasional poster to CL, but not for people that want to use it all the time. HMA does not give you a static or consistent IP. So every time you log in you will get a different IP. Good for some, bad for others. Depends on your situation as always.

The post I redid is still up…it’s been two hours now. I did send another email to Craig and as usual he says “sharing now”. I post in the Service directory for my city. I write…mainly resumes (have done so for over 30 years now) I’m not sure why my posts would be attractive to scammers, but something just doesn’t seem right. I’ll check out that VPN…not sure what that is, but I normally look everything up online to get some answers. Thanks for the reply. It’s just unnerving to look on my list for this month
and see all pink from all the deletes! I did use my DIL’s phone number for this new post, but it didn’t work…it is so far, but I’m sure I’ll be tossed again. That’s why I feel my IP has been flagged for some reason. Thank you :)

All we have at this time are videos, no written form. We had PDF files in the past but people never used them so we deleted the written format altogether. If you get the videos you have unlimited access to them so you can take as much time as you want and watch them as much as you need. Also, VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. A similar term is VPS or Virtual Private Servers. The videos explain how to get them and how to configure them to work best on Craigslist.

I connected today with a competitor in my area to see if she was having the same problem. I was again deleted this morning, reposted, and still sticking at this time (all day). She was nice enough to respond, and yes, she’s having the exact same thing happening to her. She too went thru all the possible fixes, rewriting posts, not putting in web address…clearing cookies to Craigslist, etc)…and she’s still being deleted. She says that “someone” told her that Craigslist was doing some “flushing”? This person told her that once that was done, everything would gt back to normal again. I somehow doubt that…but I guess anything is posssible :(

I don’t mean to sound rude, but unsubstantiated rumors like what your friend told you are useless. Craigslist doesn’t go through a flushing. They weed out spammers and troublemakers (as they see them obviously) all the time. There is no normal for Craigslist. Unless you want to call constant change normal.

I just created a CL post. CL emailed me with link stating that the ad is live (#4196754097). When I clicked on the link, it shows a live page. When you go back to the listing to find the ad from categories (housing/apt for rent), the ad is no where to be found. Is my ad ghosted? If so, why? I am not a frequent poster. the ad itself is just a straightforward for rent post, without any external links.

Good info. I came here because my personal add stopped expiring. This would happen every 7 days and then I would top-post it. As an older guy (48) in a small town it’s not easy getting dates. I would get an average of 2 replies a week at first, and then maybe 1 a week, but it worked.

Now though, since it doesn’t expire, I can delete it, then repost, and guess what – it goes right back to the original date of the post. It’s not on the front page, which means it’s been ghosted. Not because it was flagged, but because Craigslist filter decided that since I had posted the same personal add more than 6 times, it was “spam” and now needs to be ghosted.

The simple solution is just to create a new add, which is probably what I needed to do anyway. I’m only posting this because I wanted those in similar situations to know that CL spreads a wide net which can catch innocent people. Like Zuckerberg, Newmark can be a bit of a dumbass.

So my boyfriend said he posted an add to find a girl about 3 years ago,he claims he hasn’t been on in about a yr but I went to his email and he had very recent emails from ppl,he claims they emails randomly show up and he doesn’t know how,I heard adds delete on there own after a certain amount of time,so my question is: is it possible for him to still get emails even though it’s been a year??

We’re not here to get between you and your boyfriend, but you are correct. All ads on Craigslist will auto-delete after a predetermined amount of time. Most are seven days, but some a little longer. There are NO ads that will stay up for a year or more. Not on Craigslist. Emails do not show up randomly on their own unless they are SPAM. I’m sure you can tell the difference between a SPAM email and a real one. So we’ll leave the rest of the detective work to you. ;)

hi I dont know who to ask and this page seems informed…… I recently was a victim of a theft and i believe i have found something that belongs to me posted on craigslist my problem is that it shows the item being posted originally before the theft occured, however the item has been updated on the date of the theft and it is distinctive enough for me to feel pretty certain that its mine My question is simply this, How can i view or further investigate the post in order to determine whether or not my item has replaced a different item via the edit feature ….how do i see the post as it was originally posted approximately 25 days ago in order to get some form of definitive proof and reclaim my items

The only people that can see those types of details would be the staff at Craigslist. Will they help you in any way? Doubtful, unless you get a court order. I suggest you try the police and see if they can help you with some leverage.

I’m glad that i’m not the only one experiencing this problem, but it really blows that we are all stuck in the same boat.. I have recently become a victim of this “ghosting” as you call it.. i post ads on craigslist looking for broken electronics to buy so that I can fix and resell them on craigslist.. i’ve been doing this for about 3 years, and occasionally deal with the flagged add every now and again, to which i have always received an e-mail to let me know that my ad has been flagged.. recently i started to ramp things up by posting more ads in more places.. i first thought that someone had it out for me and was flagging my ads, until i realized that I might have been a victim of my own over spamming.. but the first time I noticed it, i noticed that 5 ads i placed all on different CL sites (austin, waco, killeen, college station and dallas) with an item for sale were all flagged.. then went my various ads where i was looking for items also.. it frustrated me, this weekend alone i’ve had over 50 ads flagged.. then i created a new account and those ads were also flagged.. the only thing I could think of was that they were somehow targeting my phone number.. instead of putting a 10 digit number out there, i’ve worded out a few of the digits, and that seems to work.. i’m still using the same ads with the same wording, just a different style phone number.. i’ve also downloaded a txt free app and used that phone number.. but this crap is getting annoying, my ads never even make it live on the site.. i watch craigslist all day long, constantly hitting the refresh button to see whats out there.. any help or input would be greatly appreciated as to what i can do to make this crap go away and get back to business as usual.. thanks guys

Go to our website http://www.beatcraigslist.com and you will find tutorials which show you how to get around the many issues that you are having. The first thing is to not do the knee jerk reaction of over posting to compensate. As you found, this will only make things worse.

yeah the same thing is happening to us. My father died and I’ve been helping my mother to empty out the Estate so she can sell her home and retire and the local antique mall and flea market ganged up on us and started flagging our estate sale ad. I know this because they went as far as to post their own ad in the same category as attacking us publicly. The whole experience was just plain frightening. Not only that they actually went as far as to send us hate mail through Craigslist system demanding that we give some of our property away for free or else trash it. I’m talking about expensive quality antiques here too not junk. Our local Craigslist estate sale section is loaded with spam for those same antique malls and flea markets on a constant basis every week and they never get flagged or removed. We really do need to fight back and take Craigslist back for the people and it seems like the folks who run it just don’t care. I guess they figure it’s free and we’ll just do with it whatever we want as a community but I guess the problem is how to protect the real community from the business and commercial interest that over runs the place. I thought about posting my own business in one of the other categories there but now I hesitate after having this experience because I don’t want to be associated with the negativity of the businesses who abuse the privilege.

I have an issue that’s led to me being flagged and ghosted. I sell panties on craigslist, which is a lucrative business, but I’m only allowed to do so in the clothing category, which is not where my target audience browses. If I try to post in the personals/casual encounters, apparently you’re not allowed to sell this product (or any product there), however, people are allowed to say they are looking to buy panties there, not to mention people blatantly solicit sex for money there, and they don’t get flagged. So why can’t I sell an honest pair of underwear? I’m getting frustrated that men looking for prostitutes don’t have any issue, but I do.

So where this has led me is my posts get flagged and removed, and now this morning I visit my gmail inbox and all of my messages from Craigslist have disappeared. I can understand that if they flagged me, the reply system might not function anymore, but how can Craigslist access my personal gmail and remove messages? The only thing that still remains in my gmail is if I can remember a contacts name, I can search for it and the contact will show up, but none of the past messages exist and the only information is the CL reply address. How is this happening? And can I still message those CL provided reply addresses, or will the messages not go through?

I am frequent craigslist user and i am appreciate the opportunity of listing my apartments for free on your website. Unfortunately there are series flaws in the way the craigslist operates. For some unknown reasons someone very frequently flag and deletes my ad.
It is happening many times each day like never ending game. The same happened many times last year. Through some research i came to the conclusion that my ads are flag as the way to get rid of competition. I place my ad in for owners only section (no fee). It is well known fact that this section is frequently used by real estate professions. I would say in 90% which is a clear violation to craigslist regulations. Since my rent is substantially cheaper than average rent advertised by real estate brokers, one of them or few of them intentionally and constantly flag and deletes my ads. Craigslist is a very popular website only because it is used by large number of non professionals. When private person like me start to have more and more problems with placing the ad because craigslist is beginning dominating by professionals, I strongly believe that craigslist value will start to diminish, as more and more non professionals will have problems similar to mine. I do not believe that it is in your best interest to switch from serving the public to become a tool for professionals. Let me mention that my ads are not flag because there are inappropriate or in violation of your regulations. Unlike real estate brokers who places multiple ads in one day in private owners only section, i place only one ad. I do not know how your program operates, maybe it can be easly cracked by hackers or be manipulated by professionals but i hope and i am sure that your programmers and software specialists are able to correct the degree of ease of deleting any ad.

How about finding out who is bad mouthing you? You see my husband has a used tire shop and he has the best prices in town so he is always getting flagged we believe its from the competition this one particular tire shop that guy even called the city inspector on us once. Now the only way I see my husbands adds is by typing his phone number with spaces in the craiglist search box and there with all my husbands add there was one saying don’t buy tires from this guy is name is louis and the address and my husband phone number it went on to say tht my husband is a crook and sells unsafe tires.. now whn tht other shop found out that my husband was putting adds on craiglist he also started putting adds. So is there a way of finding out who posted that also the keep on refreshing it is there a way to remove it completely?

I see a lot talking about flagging and ghosting but I think I’m experiencing a different issue. I was doing just paid postings for jobs and now receive a message saying “This posting is being blocked.” Do you know anyone that has received this error on every post they made? Do you know how long this lasts? I believe we are getting this message because we posted a job listing in multiple different cities with the same information on the same day. The catch was, the job was available in each different location, same job but different regions. Now that I look closer though, that still seems as if it’s not allowed by CL TOS.

I would agree with you that your situation is most likely a mass posting filter that caught your ad. If you had used different wording in each ad, it might not have happened. This is a situation that you can contact Craigslist and get it fixed because I take it you paid for this listing. For people that don’t know, many parts of Craigslist are paid sections now, and in the paid sections you can’t be ghosted because you are paying. If your ad gets blocked for some reason, then you are entitled to a refund, unlike the free sections where you pretty much get what you pay for. ;) .

I have been ghosted to the max on Craigslist. Let me start off by saying it was my fault. I didn’t read the terms of use like a fool. I posted too many ads in too short a period of time. I tried making not one but 2 new accounts with new emails and new phone numbers. Am I totally banned forever or will I ever be able to post on any of those accounts successfully ever again? Now that I know the rules I wouldn’t be trouble…but I need to be able to post. Their help pages are anything but. Any info?

You will be able to post again, its a matter of how long from now, and if you have been blacklisted or just temporarily banned. If you wait a while (a week or two) and start over with new everything, you can start to post again. If you follow the rules then you will hopefully not be Ghosted again. If you have problems you can always check out our tutorials for more details to prevent ghosting. I would also use a different computer that the one you used last time since they can track the machine also.

It depends. If you reply using the same computer through the Craigslist email server it may become an issue for you. If you reply directly to the person that emails you then you have no problem. The key is to keep that machine away from the Craigslist servers. I say it “may” become an issue because this is an unknown. We don’t have a full understanding of how much they monitor the email traffic. As I understand it, they are becoming much more aggressive with the email tracking, blocking people through the emails and more which is something that they were not doing before. Its only a matter of time (if they haven’t done so already) before they cross reference all this information between emails, postings, IP, computer addresses, etc, etc.

You would have to find a way to get their email. Ask them for it directly or in your advert or some other way. You would have to email them directly, otherwise you cannot use your old machine for anything dealing with Craigslist if you have been blacklisted. How do you know if you have been blacklisted? You will know because you will fail in all your attempts to post.

I just logged onto CL to find that every single one of my ads is ghosted now. I’m a human being selling some family heirlooms and now CL wants to ban me?!?! I was being harrassment flagged by this dealer named Dave (he does this to everyone several people have told me). He’s been flagging me for months. And, because he’s been flagging me, it gets easier to flag my ads. Before him, no problem. Ever since him, constant problem. And, CL doesn’t seem to care. I had to start another account just to post the ads for things that would get flagged within two seconds. Everything seemed to be fine until this afternoon. Now, NOT ONE OF MY ADS ARE SHOWING. I’m not the troublemaker. I’m a person trying to sell some family heirlooms. Thanks CL for having the real troublemakers back and not the honest person selling things. Thanks.

I agree with you this is a big problem on Craigslist. Having dealers and professional sellers blocking the home sellers is a big issue. He probably has more money and desire than you to throw at this so he will probably win out. Complaining to Craigslist is useless. You can try selling your stuff on Backpage also.

Paid ads should not be ghosted unless you do something to violate TOS like Spamming, hate speech, illegal drugs sales, etc. By definition you are paying for a service so you should not be ghosted. Flagging is a different matter since that is up to humans and not the CL system. You can still get flagged even if you pay.

Can someone help me. I can still log in and post in almost every category. Today I tried several times posting in pets. The ads were flagged before they even went on the site. I did not get an email to tell me this. So the moderators must be doing this. So I then posted my puppies on the general section, just to see if they are flagging everything or even checking them, and it has been up for about an hour now no problem. What is going on and how long will this continue? Thanks

I don’t know how your ad reads, but here are some pointers for you. 1- You can never sell any pets or animals on Craigslist. Selling them will instantly get you Flagged. 2- Try to see if it happens at a certain time of the day or if using certain words in the ads is causing it. There are some seriously fanatical pet adoption groups, or pets rights groups or whatever groups that will flag you in an instant if they don’t like what you say in your ad.

Thanks for the info, but I can’t ever seem to get past the requirement for phone verification and they won’t accept VOIP or prepaid cellphones (which are the only phones I use). Any ideas on how to get around this?

Quick question, I have gone thru the whole “ghosting” problem, post adds and they never show up even tho it shows its “active” Well now I keep posting legitimate adds and they get flagged within minute if not seconds, doesn’t even give the add time to appear on CL. Is this also considered Ghosting?

Ya I understand that flagging and ghosting are different things vut I’m asking because when I make a post, within 30 seconds of clicking Publish my new posts turn pink and say they are flagged, before I even receive a confirmation email, the post didnt even get a chance to go live or active so no one sees the add to flag it lol…idk nvm lol Ive just made a new account and the posts r posting lol

OK when you explain it like that, then I have to say its Ghosting. Your account was probably marked as a troubled account and every time you post you will probably get that same reaction. A new account is a good way to go.

So what is CL doing about it? I guess only selling or buying is important. Trying to find a date or companionship doesn’t matter. I had a personal ad posted when I moved to a new state. Within 3 days my perfectly innocent ad was flagged. Why is it (if this is the true reason) that other people can flag an ad, which causes it to be deleted without the CL staff investigating it. Or checking the flagged account. Seems lazy or questionable. No email or anything notifying me. I also don’t like my name being displayed on the emails. I’m definitely not hiding ANYTHING. But I feel your name should be protected. Anyway, thank you for wasting my time entering the info only to be flagged and deleted. Bummer.

Dating sites and hookers control the singles section, so you can forget about finding any meaningful relationship there. This is why your ad was flagged. Also, why would you enter your real name? You always create some fake info for websites, that’s just a given. At least I thought it was.

Is there any free proxy server available to post ads on craigslist? and if posting from one account get ghosted each time. Should we have to create another one or we can able to post ads from existing id?

Yes, there are some free proxys that will work, but not many. If all your posts are getting Ghosted from one account, I would say that this does not bode well for that account. You can do several things to try and clean up that account, but most people will opt for the faster way and just create a new account.

I ended up being ghosted on Craigslist and it was a very frustrating experience. I tried most of the things you read about such as changing my email address and using a different phone number but my ads continued to not appear on the site. I was finally able to start posting ads again when I logged into my Craigslist account that was being ghosted and reposted an ad from 2007. Somehow, that ad posted perfectly! I did the same thing using old expired ads from various years and they all successfully posted even after I completely changed the title, picture, and content of the ad during the reposting process. I have not yet attempted to post a fresh, new ad to see if that works because, now that it ain’t broke, I’m not going to try to fix it. I hope this is helpful and works for others as well.

That’s a very good point that you bring up. Using old ads that were previously OK and reposting them. I discuss that same method in the tutorials on my site. I also show how you can use ghosted ads as traffic for real ads or new ads. Why you ask? Because if you repost a ghosted ad it cant be ghosted again. Its tricky but it works.

Vengeful? I don’t have any malice or hatred towards them. I feel there are many practices of theirs that are unfair, but that’s about it. I’m here to help people cut through the BS not to put down Craigslist. I think they provide a great service. I just don’t like the way they go about it.

I find it funny how some individuals can post 100s of ads a week and have no problem but others who been using the site for years and simply want to post in 6 different sections you serve have been ghosted – how can one person get around this and other get screwed and get ghosted – the only thing I see here is the fact that people are running away from this website. sadly a few years ago this site was great – I wish them luck when some one takes over their share of the market place and creates a totally new website

So I am trying to help a furniture store who has multiple computers and email accounts and some but not all of the post show up for different furniture. There are competitors posting the same pictures adds all day and all night. Is it possible they developed an application that would sit there and create new accounts for all of these posts and keep re-posting. Just trying to keep things fair in the market.

Anything is possible. There are some auto posting programs available, but CL generally catches them. If you want to try some, I have some auto post programs bundled up and available for free download at my website on the download page (tutorial page). You can try and see if they help you. If not, I list several other methods on my site that you can try and see what works best for you.

Craigslist is also unpatriotic. If you say anything about employers that offer dirt for pay and explain that the reason is mainly because of the illegal aliens working for lower wages, they will remove it. Further and more to that point, employers have all learned that people will work for next to nothing because they can hire two IA’s for the price of one AMERICAN and so they’re getting WAY rich off their own peoples AND the aliens backs. And while this all drives wages down, EVERYTHING else is going up. AMERICANS are starving you greedy bassturds. How many people did you see today begging for money? Start counting ‘em. You and I may be next. You would think that they would be trying to get the message out and stop all this political correctness bullpattie and try to HELP the economy instead of ruin it. Craigslist could be helpful or hurtful. If you’re the latter, you’re the enemy. Period. All I can say people is that something is up in this country. And if the people who want this country to ‘go away’ saw this, they would probably get the idea to spend millions of their oil dollars to help all this along. Maybe they already DID see it… Better get ready….

I admire your generosity. Thank you for the information. I have one question. Why am I not able to log into craigslist on a proxy server? It keeps refreshing the login screen as if I didnt type the pw in correctly.

That has to do more with the proxy that you are using. Not all proxies work on Craigslist. It has to be a proxy that acts as if it was really you. It has to work as a middle man but not cut out the information Craigslist is sending you. A lot of proxies will interfere with the cookies, java scripts, and other such things which give away the fact that it’s not really you. Some free proxies are just not good enough and you have to use a pay service. The decision comes down to whether you will be making enough profit from Craigslist to cover the cost of the proxy service or not.

Hi Cyn, ask any questions you have and I will try to answer as best I can. I do not update these posts as much as I do the ones on my blog. You can get a LOT more information there than you can here. I post some general guidelines here and suggest you visit my blog for a more extensive review of any problem or situation that exists at Craigslist. I have a lot more pages there for your enjoyment. Visit http://www.beatcraigslist.com for much more details. In fact right now I am tied up migrating everything from my old address to this new one.